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Here's a better excuse: A deal signed on the eve before November 4th after weeks of tough negotiations might save them a lot of money instead of signing up right now and pay the current price.

They probably do DAILY math: How many subs did leave today and gave "Lakers" as the reason, and how much money could we potentially be saving by holding out? It is a gamble, but TWC needs DirecTV just as much as DirecTV needs TWC.

It becomes a question on how much pre-season fans are willing to miss.

No. Sign a deal today that says you don't start broadcasting till x day. Let everyone know. That's the proper way to do it if you want to holdout to the last minute to launch. As a fan, I still find that bs, as I want to watch the preseason games, but I'd be far happier with that scenario than no info at all.

But signing a deal today still means paying today's price. If no one signs at today's price, TWC will be forced to lower the price. It is more about when the deal is signed than it is about when the broadcasts start. DirecTV is holding out for a lower price. Neither side is desperate yet, so no deal has been reached.

But signing a deal today still means paying today's price. If no one signs at today's price, TWC will be forced to lower the price. It is more about when the deal is signed than it is about when the broadcasts start. DirecTV is holding out for a lower price. Neither side is desperate yet, so no deal has been reached.

Your dreaming if you think a matter of a week or two or even a month or two is going to change the price on this channel. It's not. Negotiations will change the price, not time, not now anyway. Neither side will get desperate unless this drags on for a few years...

Your dreaming if you think a matter of a week or two or even a month or two is going to change the price on this channel. It's not. Negotiations will change the price, not time, not now anyway. Neither side will get desperate unless this drags on for a few years...

At some point the loss ends and the savings begins for providers. No one wants to lose customers but if this goes on more than a season eventually TWC has lost it's largest "bargaining chip" which is the customer.

TWC has no reason to sign early deals because it just draws customer's to them. They can hold out for a few months and then start negotiating as the long term gain would easily offset the loss of the first few months.

The Lakers are not going to be happy if TWC holds out for that long. In no way do they want to limit availability of game broadcast like that.

I wouldn't be so sure, just look at the Blazers situation in Portland. It will be interesting to see if the Lakers learned from the mistakes of the Blazers and if the Lakers/TWC contract has penalties for not achieving a certain market availability but if it does, I'm sure both parties will be quiet about it.

I wouldn't be so sure, just look at the Blazers situation in Portland. It will be interesting to see if the Lakers learned from the mistakes of the Blazers and if the Lakers/TWC contract has penalties for not achieving a certain market availability but if it does, I'm sure both parties will be quiet about it.

Maybe my post was misunderstood. My line about limiting availability was in reference to the Lakers rather than TWC. I think the Lakers are going to get extremely antsy, albeit privately, if TWC doesn't step up their game. So I agree with you. The Blazers situation is just a mess and they have not been happy at all with Comcast.

Yes, but this was all in the newspaper and then NOTHING came from it. NOTHING at all.

Blazers management won't publicly slam Comcast either.

It's great about saying one thing, but then doing absolutely nothing about it. Even if the contract says they are screwed (probably does) that doesn't mean that they cannot publicly bash Comcast.

So this article, almost two years old is hollow. Keep that in mind.

Maybe my post was misunderstood. My line about limiting availability was in reference to the Lakers rather than TWC. I think the Lakers are going to get extremely antsy, albeit privately, if TWC doesn't step up their game. So I agree with you. The Blazers situation is just a mess and they have not been happy at all with Comcast.

Negotiations take time. We know from Viacom and PAC12 that DirecTV really isn't bullied in to the "make a deal now" anymore. They will leave stations dark, or not carry them until the other side blinks.

Now, with TWC Sportsnet this might be a more dangerous situation, as people WILL leave. But they won't leave till the actual season begins, so DirecTV has time till early November to make the deal. And TWC might be getting more desperate by then.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if DirecTV drags this out even longer, and is going to wait till someone else signs first.

[Disclaimer] The definition of "soon" is based solely on DirecTV's interpretation of the word, and all similarities with dictionary definitions of the word "soon" are purely coincidental and should not be interpreted as a time frame that will come to pass within a reasonable amount of time.

Negotiations take time. We know from Viacom and PAC12 that DirecTV really isn't bullied in to the "make a deal now" anymore. They will leave stations dark, or not carry them until the other side blinks.

Now, with TWC Sportsnet this might be a more dangerous situation, as people WILL leave. But they won't leave till the actual season begins, so DirecTV has time till early November to make the deal. And TWC might be getting more desperate by then.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if DirecTV drags this out even longer, and is going to wait till someone else signs first.

OR.....i'll keep streaming the Lakers on my computer until something gets done. I'll never go back to TWC for TV. If DIRECTV doesn't get TWC, i'll use my 52" computer which i already do anyways.

I wouldn't be so sure, just look at the Blazers situation in Portland. It will be interesting to see if the Lakers learned from the mistakes of the Blazers and if the Lakers/TWC contract has penalties for not achieving a certain market availability but if it does, I'm sure both parties will be quiet about it.

You can not compare the blazers and the Lakers. It's two different worlds.

You are aware that they said the same thing about the Pac 12 and Directv kept saying that Directv kept saying they wanted to carry it and would have an update closer to "when school starts." When it was pointed out to Directv that some of the Pac 12 schools were in session they became evasive. Then on the eve of the season opener Directv got up and walked away from the bargaining table completely. For someone that openly says that they are trying to get the channel getting up and walking away completely is simply not trying. Directv never had any intent to carry the Pac 12, has no current intent to carry the Pac 12. The ONLY way that will change is if enough customers walk.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Directv is playing the same game with Laker fans. If anything Directv is going to push this as far as it can go.

So take what Directv says with caution. They are proven liars. To me, when a company openly lies to their customers that is the last straw. It proves to me that company leadership has no integrity whatsoever. It's OK to make a business decision not to carry a channel. It's OK to negotiate in good faith and not come to a deal. But it's not OK to tell customers they want the channel, lead them to believe they will have the channel, and then when that drop dead date is coming (start of season) to simply get up and walk away completely. There is no good faith bargaining going on. It's all deception and deceiving as many customers as they can to keep them subscribed to Directv.

We may know 3rd quarter subscriber numbers soon, but Directv successfully pushed Pac 12 subscriber losses into the 4th quarter. You may see some aggressive sign up offers as the 4th quarter drags on. There will be - and probably already are - losses from the Lakers. Some people are not going to play the game any longer. They want their Pac 12 and they want their Lakers. Directv is not giving it to them so those falks are already walking....when I cancelled Directv last weekend the gentleman confirmed that they are seeing losses from Laker and Pac 12 issues. But he may not be the best guide as to what is going on, all he does is disconnects and tries to talk you out of it every single day. Nice guy, but he conceded to me Directv is falling behind on the sports content and did say that the company may be going in a different direction right now.

I read some in some article that another reason D* and other TV providers are waiting till the last possible minute is because not carrying the channel now would save them something like 100K per day.Basically D* and the other TV providers don't want to pay for pre season games.

If D* was smart and they struck a deal before the other TV providers say like a week in advance they could attract new D* customers to them.

I see a lot of posts on the Laker dedicated website forums and threads that people would be willing to to ditch their current non TWC TV provider and switch to D* if they had the channel.

. . .when I cancelled Directv last weekend the gentleman confirmed that they are seeing losses from Laker and Pac 12 issues.

That is the only true statement in your entire rant. Everyone knows that some people will leave DirecTV over the PAC 12 and Lakers, but no one east of the Rockies cares about the PAC 12 and no one outside of the Lakers DMA would be able to see the Lakers games, even if DirecTV carried the channel unless they have League Pass, and if they have League Pass, they would see the games even if DirecTV does not carry the channel. LA is big, but it is still a small part of the entire DirecTV customer base.

As I have said many times before, DirecTV has already calculated how much they will lose by not having the PAC 12 or Lakers Channels. If they can get the channels for less than they will lose by not having them, then DirecTV will carry the channels. As long as the content owners are asking for more than what DirecTV expects to lose by not carrying them, DirecTV has no interest in the channels.

It is all about the bottom line. There was no way DirecTV would come out ahead on either deal. It is just matter of what would cause them to lose less. So far, DirecTV has decided that the lost customers will be smaller than the amount that is being asked to carry the channels.

Also check the cost of going to a game. I dropped $750 last year just to take my son to one game. We also spent $24 bucks for two value meals at McDonald's. Two! Lastly, $20 bucks for parking. I'd rather pay $3.95 a month and watch it at home.